Publisher's Synopsis
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of linguistics that identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, computer science, communication research, anthropology, and sociology. The tradition of applied linguistics established itself in part as a response to the narrowing of focus in linguistics with the advent in the late 1950s of generative linguistics, and has always maintained a socially-accountable role, demonstrated by its central interest in language problems. The book, Applied Linguistics: An Introduction should be of utmost importance for students of applied linguistics and second language pedagogy as well as practicing teachers and researchers wishing to update their knowledge. First chapter shows that reporting evidentials not only function as indicating the information sources, but also have multiple evaluative functions. Second chapter explores about the main aspects of pragmatics are briefly introduced and then elaborated as building-blocks of character language. Third chapter reviews experimental research on implicit learning using linguistic stimuli, and proposes five key procedures of a framework for empirical studies of implicit learning. Fourth chapter expresses on some polemical issues in applied linguistics and fifth chapter focuses on language politics. Sixth chapter presents four different approaches to metaphor, based on the interdependence between language and thought as system and as use: metaphor in language as system; metaphor in thought as system; metaphor in language as use and metaphor in thought as use. Seventh chapter incorporates linguistic knowledge for learning distributed word representations. Eighth chapter critically discusses the paradigmatic shift in applied linguistics, resulting in a claim that countless real-world language problems fall within its scope, but in reality they weaken the discipline and make it lack a focus. Then it takes a closer look at the nature of these language problems, and picks out, for analysis, real examples of writing problems in ELT in Indonesian context. It further argues that, by focusing primarily on problems in ELT and SLA, applied linguistics reaffirms its well-defined position and underscores its significant contributions to both disciplines. Finally, it concludes the discussion by adding some notes on the question of autonomy in both applied linguistics and in ELT in Indonesia. Ninth chapter examines whether cultural factors influence the writer's choice concerning evidentiality and the interpersonal functions of evidentiality. First, it illustrates the necessity of the comparative study. Second, it presents the findings, including the similarities and the differences. Third, the pedagogical implications are pointed out. Tenth chapter support the universality of animacy cue proposed by Gass but also suggest that word order and pragmatic factors may affect L2 learners' cue strategies. The chapter also evidences the contribution of the input to the development of L2 cue strategies, which is in line with the predictions of the Competition Model. Eleventh chapter examines the origins of language, as treated within Evolutionary Anthropology, under the light offered by a biolinguistic approach. Twelfth chapter highlights on citation in applied linguistics. Appropriate reference to other sources is an important feature of academic writing. Last chapter explores the rhetorical structure of introductions that are followed by an independent Literature Review section.
